"No, Mum," said the Balloon-woman, and bobbed a funny little curtsey that nearly sent Bets into fits of laughter. They all went out of the shed and up the path to the front gate.
"That was a narrow squeak," said Larry, when they were safely out in the road.
"Narrow squeaks are exciting! " said Pip.
They made their way to the main street of the village. There, on the sunny bench, was the old man as usual, bent over his stick, looking half-asleep.
"I'll go and sit down by him," said Fatty, swinging his voluminous skirts out around him as he walked. "You walk behind me now, and keep a watch out for Goon. Bets can tell me if he's anywhere about when she comes to buy a balloon. You can all go and have lemonade in that shop, to begin with."
The Balloon-woman sat down on the bench with her bunch of gay balloons. The old man at the end of the seat took no notice of her at all. The balloons bobbed in the wind, and passers-by looked at them with pleasure. A mother stopped to buy one for her baby, and the four watching children giggled as they saw Fatty bend over the baby in the pram and tickle its cheek.
"How does he know how to do things like that?" chuckled Larry. "I'd never think of those things."
"But it's those little touches that make his disguises so real," said Daisy, in admiration. They went into the lemonade shop and sat down to have a drink. A man was sitting at a table nearby, lost in a big newspaper. Larry glanced at him, and then gave Pip a kick under the table. Pip looked up and Larry winked at him, and nodded his head slightly towards the man.
The others looked—and there was old Clear-Orf, in plain clothes, pretending to read a newspaper, and keeping an eye on the bench across the road, just as they too intended to do!
"Good morning, Mr. Goon," said Larry politely. "Having a day off?"